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GREAT EXPECTATIONS
were singing. Then, I got up and partly dressed, and sat at the
window to take a last look out, and in taking it fell asleep.
Biddy was astir so early to get my breakfast, that, although
I did not sleep at the window an hour, I smelt the smoke of the
kitchen fire when I started up with a terrible idea that it must
be late in the afternoon. But long after that, and long after I had
heard the clinking of the teacups and was quite ready, I wanted
the resolution to go down stairs. After all, I remained up there,
repeatedly unlocking and unstrapping my small portmanteau
and locking and strapping it up again, until Biddy called to me
that I was late.
It was a hurried breakfast with no taste in it. I got up from the
meal, saying with a sort of briskness, as if it had only just occurred
to me, “Well! I suppose I must be off!” and then I kissed my sister
who was laughing and nodding and shaking in her usual chair,
and kissed Biddy, and threw my arms around Joe’s neck. Then I
took up my little portmanteau and walked out. The last I saw of
them was, when I presently heard a scuffle behind me, and looking back, saw Joe throwing an old shoe after me and Biddy throwing another old shoe. I stopped then, to wave my hat, and dear
old Joe waved his strong right arm above his head, crying huskily
“Hooroar!” and Biddy put her apron to her face.
I walked away at a good pace, thinking it was easier to go than
I had supposed it would be, and reflecting that it would never
have done to have had an old shoe thrown after the coach, in
sight of all the High Street. I whistled and made nothing of going.
But the village was very peaceful and quiet, and the light mists
were solemnly rising, as if to show me the world, and I had been
so innocent and little there, and all beyond was so unknown and
great, that in a moment with a strong heave and sob I broke into
tears. It was by the finger-post at the end of the village, and I laid
my hand upon it, and said, “Good by, O my dear, dear friend!”
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CHARLES DICKENS
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for
they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard
hearts. I was better after I had cried than before, – more sorry,
more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle. If I had cried
before, I should have had Joe with me then.
So subdued I was by those tears, and by their breaking out
again in the course of the quiet walk, that when I was on the
coach, and it was clear of the town, I deliberated with an aching
heart whether I would not get down when we changed horses
and walk back, and have another evening at home, and a better
parting. We changed, and I had not made up my mind, and still
reflected for my comfort that it would be quite practicable to get
down and walk back, when we changed again. And while I was
occupied with these deliberations, I would fancy an exact resemblance to Joe in some man coming along the road towards us, and
my heart would beat high. – As if he could possibly be there!
We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and
too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly
risen now, and the world lay spread before me.
This is the end of the first stage of Pip’s expectations.
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CHAPTER XX
The journey from our town to the metropolis was a journey
of about five hours. It was a little past midday when the fourhorse stage-coach by which I was a passenger, got into the ravel
of traffic frayed out about the Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, London.
We Britons had at that time particularly settled that it was
treasonable to doubt our having and our being the best of everything: otherwise, while I was scared by the immensity of London,
I think I might have had some faint doubts whether it was not
rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty.
Mr. Jaggers had duly sent me his address; it was, Little Britain,
and he had written after it on his card, “just out of Smithfield, and
close by the coach-office.” Nevertheless, a hackney-coachman,
who seemed to have as many capes to his greasy great-coat as he
was years old, packed me up in his coach and hemmed me in with
a folding and jingling barrier of steps, as if he were going to take
me fifty miles. His getting on his box, which I remember to have
been decorated with an old weather-stained pea-green hammercloth moth-eaten into rags, was quite a work of time. It was a
wonderful equipage, with six great coronets outside, and ragged
things behind for I don’t know how many footmen to hold on
by, and a harrow below them, to prevent amateur footmen from
yielding to the temptation.
I had scarcely had time to enjoy the coach and to think how
like a straw-yard it was, and yet how like a rag-shop, and to won-
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CHARLES DICKENS
der why the horses’ nose-bags were kept inside, when I observed
the coachman beginning to get down, as if we were going to stop
presently. And stop we presently did, in a gloomy street, at certain
offices with an open door, whereon was painted MR. JAGGERS.
“How much?” I asked the coachman.
The coachman answered, “A shilling – unless you wish to
make it more.”
I naturally said I had no wish to make it more.
“Then it must be a shilling,” observed the coachman. “I don’t
want to get into trouble. I know him!” He darkly closed an eye at
Mr. Jaggers’s name, and shook his head.
When he had got his shilling, and had in course of time completed the ascent to his box, and had got away (which appeared
to relieve his mind), I went into the front office with my little
portmanteau in my hand and asked, Was Mr. Jaggers at home?
“He is not,” returned the clerk. “He is in Court at present. Am
I addressing Mr. Pip?”
I signified that he was addressing Mr. Pip.
“Mr. Jaggers left word, would you wait in his room. He
couldn’t say how long he might be, having a case on. But it stands
to reason, his time being valuable, that he won’t be longer than
he can help.” With those words, the clerk opened a door, and
ushered me into an inner chamber at the back. Here, we found a
gentleman with one eye, in a velveteen suit and knee-breeches,
who wiped his nose with his sleeve on being interrupted in the
perusal of the newspaper.
“Go and wait outside, Mike,” said the clerk.
I began to say that I hoped I was not interrupting, when the
clerk shoved this gentleman out with as little ceremony as I ever
saw used, and tossing his fur cap out after him, left me alone.
Mr. Jaggers’s room was lighted by a skylight only, and was a
most dismal place; the skylight, eccentrically pitched like a bro-
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ken head, and the distorted adjoining houses looking as if they
had twisted themselves to peep down at me through it. There
were not so many papers about, as I should have expected to see;
and there were some odd objects about, that I should not have
expected to see, – such as an old rusty pistol, a sword in a scabbard, several strange-looking boxes and packages, and two dreadful casts on a shelf, of faces peculiarly swollen, and twitchy about
the nose. Mr. Jaggers’s own high-backed chair was of deadly black
horsehair, with rows of brass nails round it, like a coffin; and I
fancied I could see how he leaned back in it, and bit his forefinger
at the clients. The room was but small, and the clients seemed
to have had a habit of backing up against the wall; the wall, especially opposite to Mr. Jaggers’s chair, being greasy with shoulders. I recalled, too, that the one-eyed gentleman had shuffled
forth against the wall when I was the innocent cause of his being
turned out.
I sat down in the cliental chair placed over against Mr. Jaggers’s chair, and became fascinated by the dismal atmosphere
of the place. I called to mind that the clerk had the same air of
knowing something to everybody else’s disadvantage, as his master had. I wondered how many other clerks there were up-stairs,
and whether they all claimed to have the same detrimental mastery of their fellow-creatures. I wondered what was the history of
all the odd litter about the room, and how it came there. I wondered whether the two swollen faces were of Mr. Jaggers’s family, and, if he were so unfortunate as to have had a pair of such
ill-looking relations, why he stuck them on that dusty perch for
the blacks and flies to settle on, instead of giving them a place at
home. Of course I had no experience of a London summer day,
and my spirits may have been oppressed by the hot exhausted
air, and by the dust and grit that lay thick on everything. But I
sat wondering and waiting in Mr. Jaggers’s close room, until I re-
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CHARLES DICKENS
ally could not bear the two casts on the shelf above Mr. Jaggers’s
chair, and got up and went out.
When I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the air while
I waited, he advised me to go round the corner and I should come
into Smithfield. So I came into Smithfield; and the shameful
place, being all asmear with filth and fat and blood and foam,
seemed to stick to me. So, I rubbed it off with all possible speed
by turning into a street where I saw the great black dome of Saint
Paul’s bulging at me from behind a grim stone building which a
bystander said was Newgate Prison. Following the wall of the jail,
I found the roadway covered with straw to deaden the noise of
passing vehicles; and from this, and from the quantity of people
standing about smelling strongly of spirits and beer, I inferred
that the trials were on.
While I looked about me here, an exceedingly dirty and partially drunk minister of justice asked me if I would like to step
in and hear a trial or so: informing me that he could give me a
front place for half a crown, whence I should command a full
view of the Lord Chief Justice in his wig and robes, – mentioning
that awful personage like waxwork, and presently offering him
at the reduced price of eighteen-pence. As I declined the proposal on the plea of an appointment, he was so good as to take
me into a yard and show me where the gallows was kept, and
also where people were publicly whipped, and then he showed
me the Debtors’ Door, out of which culprits came to be hanged;
heightening the interest of that dreadful portal by giving me to
understand that “four on ‘em” would come out at that door the
day after to-morrow at eight in the morning, to be killed in a row.
This was horrible, and gave me a sickening idea of London; the
more so as the Lord Chief Justice’s proprietor wore (from his hat
down to his boots and up again to his pocket-handkerchief inclusive) mildewed clothes which had evidently not belonged to him
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GREAT EXPECTATIONS
originally, and which I took it into my head he had bought cheap
of the executioner. Under these circumstances I thought myself
well rid of him for a shilling.
I dropped into the office to ask if Mr. Jaggers had come in yet,
and I found he had not, and I strolled out again. This time, I made
the tour of Little Britain, and turned into Bartholomew Close;
and now I became aware that other people were waiting about
for Mr. Jaggers, as well as I. There were two men of secret appearance lounging in Bartholomew Close, and thoughtfully fitting
their feet into the cracks of the pavement as they talked together,
one of whom said to the other when they first passed me, that
“Jaggers would do it if it was to be done.” There was a knot of
three men and two women standing at a corner, and one of the
women was crying on her dirty shawl, and the other comforted
her by saying, as she pulled her own shawl over her shoulders,
“Jaggers is for him, ‘Melia, and what more could you have?” There
was a red-eyed little Jew who came into the Close while I was loitering there, in company with a second little Jew whom he sent
upon an errand; and while the messenger was gone, I remarked
this Jew, who was of a highly excitable temperament, performing
a jig of anxiety under a lamp-post and accompanying himself, in a
kind of frenzy, with the words, “O Jaggerth, Jaggerth, Jaggerth! all
otherth ith CagMaggerth, give me Jaggerth!” These testimonies
to the popularity of my guardian made a deep impression on me,
and I admired and wondered more than ever.
At length, as I was looking out at the iron gate of Bartholomew
Close into Little Britain, I saw Mr. Jaggers coming across the road
towards me. All the others who were waiting saw him at the same
time, and there was quite a rush at him. Mr. Jaggers, putting a
hand on my shoulder and walking me on at his side without saying anything to me, addressed himself to his followers.
First, he took the two secret men.
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CHARLES DICKENS
“Now, I have nothing to say to you,” said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his finger at them. “I want to know no more than I know. As
to the result, it’s a toss-up. I told you from the first it was a toss-up.
Have you paid Wemmick?”
“We made the money up this morning, sir,” said one of the
men, submissively, while the other perused Mr. Jaggers’s face.
“I don’t ask you when you made it up, or where, or whether
you made it up at all. Has Wemmick got it?”
“Yes, sir,” said both the men together.
“Very well; then you may go. Now, I won’t have it!” said Mr
Jaggers, waving his hand at them to put them behind him. “If you
say a word to me, I’ll throw up the case.”
“We thought, Mr. Jaggers – ” one of the men began, pulling
off his hat.
“That’s what I told you not to do,” said Mr. Jaggers. “You
thought! I think for you; that’s enough for you. If I want you, I
know where to find you; I don’t want you to find me. Now I won’t
have it. I won’t hear a word.”
The two men looked at one another as Mr. Jaggers waved them
behind again, and humbly fell back and were heard no more.
“And now you!” said Mr. Jaggers, suddenly stopping, and turning on the two women with the shawls, from whom the three
men had meekly separated, – ”Oh! Amelia, is it?”
“Yes, Mr. Jaggers.”
“And do you remember,” retorted Mr. Jaggers, “that but for
me you wouldn’t be here and couldn’t be here?”
“O yes, sir!” exclaimed both women together. “Lord bless you,
sir, well we knows that!”
“Then why,” said Mr. Jaggers, “do you come here?” “My Bill,
sir!” the crying woman pleaded.
“Now, I tell you what!” said Mr. Jaggers. “Once for all. If you
don’t know that your Bill’s in good hands, I know it. And if you
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GREAT EXPECTATIONS
come here bothering about your Bill, I’ll make an example of
both your Bill and you, and let him slip through my fingers. Have
you paid Wemmick?”
“O yes, sir! Every farden.”
“Very well. Then you have done all you have got to do. Say
another word – one single word – and Wemmick shall give you
your money back.”
This terrible threat caused the two women to fall off immediately. No one remained now but the excitable Jew, who had already raised the skirts of Mr. Jaggers’s coat to his lips several times.
“I don’t know this man!” said Mr. Jaggers, in the same devastating strain: “What does this fellow want?”
“Ma thear Mithter Jaggerth. Hown brother to Habraham
Latharuth?”
“Who’s he?” said Mr. Jaggers. “Let go of my coat.”
The suitor, kissing the hem of the garment again before relinquishing it, replied, “Habraham Latharuth, on thuthpithion
of plate.”
“You’re too late,” said Mr. Jaggers. “I am over the way.”
“Holy father, Mithter Jaggerth!” cried my excitable acquaintance, turning white, “don’t thay you’re again Habraham Latharuth!”
“I am,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and there’s an end of it. Get out of
the way.”
“Mithter Jaggerth! Half a moment! My hown cuthen’th gone
to Mithter Wemmick at thith prethent minute, to hoffer him
hany termth. Mithter Jaggerth! Half a quarter of a moment! If
you’d have the condethenthun to be bought off from the t’other
thide – at hany thuperior prithe! – money no object! – Mithter
Jaggerth – Mithter – !”
My guardian threw his supplicant off with supreme indifference, and left him dancing on the pavement as if it were red hot.
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CHARLES DICKENS
Without further interruption, we reached the front office, where
we found the clerk and the man in velveteen with the fur cap.
“Here’s Mike,” said the clerk, getting down from his stool, and
approaching Mr. Jaggers confidentially.
“Oh!” said Mr. Jaggers, turning to the man, who was pulling
a lock of hair in the middle of his forehead, like the Bull in Cock
Robin pulling at the bell-rope; “your man comes on this afternoon. Well?”
“Well, Mas’r Jaggers,” returned Mike, in the voice of a sufferer
from a constitutional cold; “arter a deal o’ trouble, I’ve found one,
sir, as might do.”
“What is he prepared to swear?”
“Well, Mas’r Jaggers,” said Mike, wiping his nose on his fur
cap this time; “in a general way, anythink.”
Mr. Jaggers suddenly became most irate. “Now, I warned you
before,” said he, throwing his forefinger at the terrified client, “that
if you ever presumed to talk in that way here, I’d make an example
of you. You infernal scoundrel, how dare you tell ME that?”
The client looked scared, but bewildered too, as if he were
unconscious what he had done.
“Spooney!” said the clerk, in a low voice, giving him a stir with
his elbow. “Soft Head! Need you say it face to face?”
“Now, I ask you, you blundering booby,” said my guardian,
very sternly, “once more and for the last time, what the man you
have brought here is prepared to swear?”
Mike looked hard at my guardian, as if he were trying to learn
a lesson from his face, and slowly replied, “Ayther to character, or
to having been in his company and never left him all the night
in question.”
“Now, be careful. In what station of life is this man?”
Mike looked at his cap, and looked at the floor, and looked at
the ceiling, and looked at the clerk, and even looked at me, before
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